I've been following the Flyers since the mid 80's and never have I seen such a polarizing debate over 2 Flyers..not even with Propp and Poulin when they were traded. Those two were much better players and had way more character and integrity off the ice than Carter and Richards and yet the debate when those two were individually traded was that Clarke held on to them too long and even worse got diminished returns as a result which ultimately set up the team for 5 years of futility.

Well, in the case of Richards, not so much Carter, it still irks me no end that, after a Stanley Cup final and a next year loss to the eventual Stanley Cup winner, "they" traded away our captain; that the two of them went on to Stanley Cups and conference finals and the resulting Flyers still are wallowing in mediocrity or worse. That they had signed long term, home discount deals with the expectation that they'd be Flyers for life and yet were booted to the sidewalk without any warning. That these two players are prime contenders for this year's Olympic team and not one player who came back in the deal (except maybe Voracek) will ever be Olympic contenders. That the recent moaning and groaning on this site about Simmonds, Schenn and Couturier and their lack of productivity is so disheartening.

And, trust me, Richards and Carter had nothing on Propp and Poulin when they were young- it was a different time and people weren't carrying cameras with world wide access at the time Propp and Poulin may have been carrying on in the late 70s' early 80s'. And what makes you so definitive as to be able to compare character and integrity of players from different generations?